


The Summer Effect

by RedHorse



Series: Dear Lily [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drinking, F/M, Friendship, Hogwarts, Lily Evans Potter Lives, Mysteries, staff culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-24 08:27:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14351712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedHorse/pseuds/RedHorse
Summary: Severus knew what this was. He considered the unspoken invitation for a long moment, his strong tendency to protect himself from social interaction warring with the part of him that was curious – and, yes, flattered – and then he followed Minerva. She walked purposefully through the corridors, out a side exit and down a short, mossy stone staircase where the Great Lake lapped against the castle walls. There, where a naturally formed slab of rock jutted out into the water, Pomona Sprout was clumsily transfiguring rocks into a table and chairs.......Over the course of three summers, life can change dramatically.





	1. 1990

**Author's Note:**

> This is a standalone story set in the time period preceding Dear Lily until a point just before Only Two. You do not have to read anything else in order to understand this story, but if you like it then please consider reading those stories too. 
> 
> I post as I write, so mistakes are inevitable and I won't be offended if you point them out.
> 
> Thank you to a reader who requested I fill in some blanks in the progression of Lily and Severus's relationship in the central narrative of "Dear Lily," the result took a form I didn't expect!

1990

Dumbledore and the werewolf were having tea, so Severus was lingering in the dungeons in the hope that he could avoid bumping into said werewolf in the corridors. In a castle as vast as Hogwarts, the frequency with which Severus accidentally crossed paths with Remus Lupin was statistically impossible. Of course, Hogwarts was not a mere building, without obligation to the restrictions of physics let alone architecture, and the extent to which it controlled the destinies of its occupants was unknown but, Severus suspected, significant.

The damned place had never shown Severus any leniency, either. He didn’t pretend to prescribe simple human motivations on a centuries-old magical structure, and according to principles of houselore, Hogwarts was bound to have perpetually confused loyalties and motives, making it the magical space’s equivalent of a mad old aunt – generally benevolent, maybe; dangerously eccentric, certainly. If Severus didn’t have sentimental feelings about the old heap, he might have advocated more strongly for building anew, the way Durmstrang had when its original quarters began locking Professors in their offices and moving the most untidy students to the lawn while they slept.

Instead, Severus banked the coals of animosity that flared when he recalled the myriad injustices he’d experienced in the Hogwarts halls due to seeming coincidence, and dwelt on the fact that he was alive and not in Azkaban. Free to brew potions and suffer the constant torment that was teaching a delicate art to bumbling schoolchildren. Severus owed that to Dumbledore and his mad castle, respectively, in unknown shares.

“Professor,” Argus said just as Severus emerged cautiously from his quarters. Severus almost startled at the unexpected greeting, but years of espionage followed by years of potions accidents had rendered him largely immune to the physical counterparts of inner feelings and thoughts. Therefore, his body did not betray his shock, but he did allow his irritation to manifest in a quick scowl that came as naturally to him as breathing.

Argus, faced on a daily basis with the sight of Severus’s sneer, did not react. He continued to lean against the wall, looking rather less terrifying than he did when classes were in session, since there were no students about for him to intimidate. His hair was obviously recently washed and combed, his cheeks glowed in indication of a recent, close shave, and his robes were neat and orderly. Even Argus’s wizened cat had dampened the luminosity of her eyes and was sprawled on the rock floor at his feet, batting at a scrap of parchment that had been collecting dust where the wall met the floor. The elves worked with much less enthusiasm in the castle’s lower levels for inexplicable reasons.

“Dumbledore’s appointment has concluded,” Filch said, “and he would have a word with you.”

Severus rolled his eyes. “Carrying the old man’s messages, again?”

Filch didn’t acknowledge the question. “Maybe after, you’d be interested in seeing to the docks with me.”

Severus thought with longing about the leisure reading he’d been putting off while he had papers to mark and endless detentions to supervise. There were no fewer than three quarterly potions subscriptions with new issues he hadn’t yet had the opportunity to read. But as soon as he glanced at Argus’s carefully blank face, he knew he couldn’t say no.

“Yes,” Severus sighed. “But we may as well go after dinner. I’m sure it will take half the night, but that rogue Grindylow shouldn’t bother us since it’s supposed to be a clear night.” Moonlight repelled almost all of the unpleasant aquatic magical creatures, after all. Argus’s eyes crinkled very slightly in his version of a smile, but only for a moment. Then he nodded stiffly and ambled off. Mrs. Norris reluctantly abandoned her parchment scrap and trotted after him.

The least direct route to Albus’s office was a little-used, cramped back stairway that snaked around the base of Ravenclaw tower, then split into three dark corridors like a maze. There were some storage closets that Severus had once explored as a younger and more curious Professor, wishing he had known where they were when he’d needed a refuge from the pressures of being a half blood in Slytherin House, and also lacking the inherent qualities of a foot soldier.

Past the storage closet corridor was a wider hallway that permitted access between Ravenclaw Tower and the little known Ravenclaw Library, where the books that wouldn’t fit in the towering shelves of the common room and dormitories found their home, and where certain Ravenclaws studied as an alternative to the main library. The Hogwarts library was enormous and while it probably had a maximum capacity, it expanded at will when there was the slightest indication of crowding and even at the height of exam time when nearly every student was ensconced there, Severus had never known every table to be filled.

The Ravenclaw Library was probably appealing to Ravenclaw students for reasons Severus would never know without resorting to breaking and entering, which he wasn’t keen to do. Once, after a staff Christmas party wherein Flitwick had drank overmuch, Severus had tried to wheedle the mystery out of him, but Flitwick had expressed a sort of confused ignorance that might have been convincing if he hadn’t followed it up with a jovial wink.

It would be hypocritical of Severus to accuse Ravenclaw of hoarding resources and giving students unfair academic advantages. He didn’t conceal his preference for his snakes, nor shirk away from giving them exclusive information, advice and tutoring that he wouldn’t offer to students outside his house. But he imagined Minerva and Pomona would be chagrined, and were also too willing to believe that Ravenclaw Library was just a source of storage and not something else entirely.

At that moment – a surprising coincidence, if one believed in those – Filius emerged from the gleaming blue doors to the Ravenclaw Library, a golden haze erupting around the doorway so that what lay beyond it wasn’t visible. Severus rolled his eyes. Flitwick beamed at him in his characteristic way, and Severus felt equal parts warmed and annoyed, his characteristic response.

“Severus!” Filius exclaimed, cheeks ruddy with good cheer. Severus was familiar with the early-summer delirium that seemed to afflict all Hogwarts professors, for Severus was not immune to it himself. But it manifested most obviously in Flitwick, who seemed to struggle the most with the reserved professorial air that was part of the faculty culture at Hogwarts. His natural gregariousness was alarming to Severus, though not to the degree it had been during Severus’s first year teaching, when Flitwick had determinedly befriended him through a combination of dogged determination, Firewhiskey, and a terrible tendency to declare all Severus’s past wrongs and bigotry forgiven, then burst into happy tears.

Severus watched the doors swing silently closed behind Filius, seeming to come together and form a seal, the golden light winked out.

“It’s nearly lunch time! The morning quite got away from me!”

“Quite,” Severus acknowledged, dragging his gaze away from the doors to focus on Filius. His lips twitched in his approximation of a polite smile. Filius, appearing thrilled, adjusted his grip on the stack of books he was carrying. Severus’s eyes narrowed, trying to make out the titles – did they come from the Ravenclaw Library? Were they rarer even than what was kept in the special faculty section of the main library?

“Just found these old texts a student must have left,” Filius said, thrusting the books toward Severus rather than jealously guarding them like a secret.

Crestfallen, Severus let his eyes scan the proffered covers and saw that they were nothing more than the Charms, Transfigurations and Potions text books of some forgetful third-year.

“I’m off to the owlery to see about shipping them to her. Her name wasn’t written in them in the traditional sense, but apparently she had, ah, something of a crush on a faculty member, and I was able to deduce the student in question.” Filius had gone a little pink along the sharp ridges of his cheekbones. Severus grimaced. He really didn’t want to know.

“Good bye then, Severus. See you at dinner, I’m sure!” Filius bustled off, and Severus lingered in his study of the blue doors for only another moment before stalking along himself. He was bored. He knew that was the only explanation for a resurgence in his curiosity about the library. He wasn’t a Gryffindor; he was a Slytherin. He had accepted there were things under his nose that he had no need to know. But he had made his study of Hogwarts and its history something of a hobby over the years. It made him feel better about spending every school day within its walls and most of the holidays, too. It gave him a sense – though he would certainly never admit it to anyone – of being part of something, something old and significant.

Lost in these musings, he was surprised _again_ by someone in the corridors. This time, his discomfort was so great that for the briefest moment, his lips parted in shock before he clenched his jaw shut again.

“Lupin.”

“Ah, Severus,” said the werewolf, in the same awkward way he had during each of their “accidental” encounters over the years. Like he wanted to apologize for every injustice he’d ever stood aside for, but sensed – correctly – that his sentiments would be unwelcome. “How is your summer going?”

“We’re only a week in,” Severus observed dryly. “But it has been as dreadfully uneventful as ever.”

“Ah,” Remus said, avoiding eye contact and nodding with much more vehemence than the meaningless exchange deserved. “I’ll just be going, then. Already running late.”

Severus’s lips compressed. “Indeed.” Quite late! Severus had heard from Argus at least twenty minutes ago that Dumbledore was done with Remus, and he had deliberately taken the course that would be least likely to result in this very encounter…

Severus’s eyes narrowed at a sudden thought. Perhaps Lupin, familiar with the castle’s many routes himself, had _also_ looked for a path that would be unlikely to be occupied by someone housed in the dungeons. This far corner of the castle, near Ravenclaw Tower, a safe distance from the library, Great Hall, and even the entrance to Dumbledore’s office.

“Good bye, then, Lupin,” he said crisply, and watched Remus nod his unkempt head a few more times before making a grateful escape. Severus took a moment to gather himself, then continued at a brisk pace to the Headmaster.

“Severus, my boy,” Dumbledore exclaimed as Severus ascended the staircase. Dumbledore had been writing, and must have almost been ready to finish whatever correspondence he was composing, because the little trio of barn owls that delivered all his ordinary mail were perched on the floo mantle, bickering with one another over who would have the honor of taking the letter.

“Headmaster,” Severus replied with his ordinary degree of stiffness, taking his usual chair across Dumbledore’s desk. Most would take the one closest to the door, but he preferred the other one, which prevented anyone entering without his notice.

“I have terrific news,” Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling even more than they usually did. Severus braced himself.

“It seems Harry Potter has demonstrated magical ability,” Dumbledore declared, in the tone of someone who is not surprised, but satisfied to be proven correct.

“As though there was ever any real doubt,” Severus muttered. The Potters had famously never produced a Squib, and while such things could be covered up, considering the delight other Pureblood families would have taken in disproving the claim, Severus thought it was likely true. Further, the child had survived a killing curse and bore a curse scar to prove it. Powerful, natural accidental protective magic seemed like the only possible explanation.

“Further, I am under the impression that Lily Evans Potter is amenable to enrolling Harry at Hogwarts.”

Startled, Severus’s customary frown deepened. “Lupin just informed you of all this?” That seemed unlikely. For all his faults, Lupin was presumably a good friend, and counted Lily among his closest. He couldn’t imagine him reporting on her every whim and inclination, when he wouldn’t even directly confirm to Dumbledore that she was in touch with him at all.

“Not in so many words. It was a careful deduction.” Dumbledore waved a hand dismissively. Severus studied the Headmaster thoughtfully as he busied himself signing his letter and rolling up the parchment to prepare it to be sealed. He wondered if Dumbledore had permitted himself a bit of nonconsensual legilimency. It wouldn’t align well with Dumbledore’s scruples, but over the years Severus had noticed that Dumbledore could be very ruthless in concluding that certain means were justified by certain ends. And he had plans for the Potter boy, that much had been evident for some time.

Severus found he cared not at all for the idea of Lily’s child. He was incontrovertible evidence of her choice of husband made human. In Severus’s imagination, the boy was a clone of James, a waste of Lily’s time and potential. It didn’t make sense to loathe James Potter, a dead man, just as fervently as Severus had when he was alive. Some would say the circumstances of James’s death – standing between the dark lord and his infant son, begging for the boy’s life – should absolve James of his childhood sins where Severus was concerned. But Severus had long since ceased measuring himself by ordinary human standards. He knew his personality was particularly black and particularly unforgiving, and he didn’t see the utility in struggling against his tendencies.

“Is this why you asked me here?” Severus rarely felt _comfortable_ around Dumbledore, but right now he was trying not to fidget, as awkward as a student. His thoughts strayed toward Lily far too frequently for him to lose his composure entirely when she was brought to mind, but there was still something emotionally invasive about hearing someone else speak of her, even indirectly. He’d nearly _cried_ several months before when Filius had made a passing remark about Lily’s latest published article on the long-term effects of blood magic on different types of wood, wherein she made some very intelligent correlations to wandlore, though it wasn’t her area at all…

“I knew you would be pleased,” Dumbledore said, clearly mistaking what Severus feared was a fond and absent expression on Severus’s face for something related to a Potter. Automatically, Severus scowled and shrugged.

“I don’t really care one way or the other,” he lied. He would greatly prefer for the boy to attend school somewhere – anywhere, else. Even the prospect of catching a glimpse of Lily was more painful than exciting. He felt nauseated at the thought of being reduced back to the pathetic teenager, observing Lily’s smile and hearing her laughter bestowed on other students, while he lurked in the shadows like some kind of unwanted animal…

“I only thought, given your particular friendship with the boy’s mother, you might…” something Dumbledore observed in Severus’s face had him fall into thoughtful silence, stroking the end of his beard, the twinkle going still in his eyes. Then he gestured to the owls and said, “Here, Pinkett,” and one of the trio fluttered over to him with a soft hoot, while the other two ruffled their feathers, apparently dejected.

The owl flapped its wings furiously after the scroll had been attached to its leg, rising quickly up the soaring ceiling of the office toward a narrow skylight that was charmed to allow owls to pass from the inside out. After a few moments the other two owls followed at a slower pace, presumably back toward the owlery.

“Perhaps a letter from a friend would ease her decision,” Dumbledore said. “She does not trust me to watch over her son, I’m afraid. But perhaps you…”

“She’s more likely to see my presence as a deterrent than an attraction,” Severus murmured.

“Mmm,” said Dumbledore, beginning to eye his candy jar in a familiar way. He lasted a full three seconds, which was two seconds longer than Severus would have guessed, before he reached out a long-fingered hand and lifted the lid. “Lemon drop?” he asked Severus.

Severus rolled his eyes. “Have I ever said yes?” he sighed.

Dumbledore chuckled, popping a candy into his mouth and winking unreservedly at Severus. “I was carefully trained in good manners, I’m afraid,” was his apology. The two men sat in silence for a period, then Severus admitted: “I wouldn’t know where to owl her. I have not been…successful, in the past.”

What led him to admit that he had written Lily letters, Severus couldn’t say. But he felt a degree of relief at telling someone. He had sent them to the corners of the world by the cumbersome international method, where postmen hand-delivered bundles of letters by a combination of apparition, floo, flight and boat, then sent local rented owls when the recipients were within range. But it required the sender hazard a guess as to where the recipient might be. Severus had also, of course, exhausted a range of hardy owls intermittently, and they had presumably scoured much of western Europe at his bidding, but always returned harried and with his letters still firmly tied to their legs.

Albus was watching him very closely, Severus saw. Over the years, they had not had occasion to test Dumbledore’s belief in Severus’s loyalty. Neither man believed the war was truly won – rather, in a long and periodic stasis – but their enemy was long hidden, perhaps even dead. Severus’s opportunity to prove himself to be on the light side had yet to come.

Yet in a remarkable moment of trust, Dumbledore extracted a second lemon drop from his candy dish, and told Dumbledore that Lily and her son were in MACUSA territory, though Dumbledore himself did not know more than that.

Dismissed, Severus roamed the Hogwarts halls aimlessly. Every time he had sent a letter before, he had been relieved when it came back. Sometimes his relief was more profound than others, because his letters ranged from hideously emotional, when written in one of his weaker periods, to rather _too_ detached and matter-of-fact, which he only slightly preferred. Through a combination of his natural character and the circumstances of his adult life, Severus had only been close to one person in all his years on Earth, and while the powerlessness of that fact frustrated him, he could never feel truly ashamed of loving Lily.

Sometimes when Severus read her more philosophical work on the arbitrariness of “dark” and “light” magic labels, he felt a paralyzing, terrible hope that it indicated some sort of forgiveness for Severus himself. As a teenager, Lily had abhorred what she perceived to be “dark.” As an adult, she appeared to feel differently. But he doubted her feelings about marked Death Eaters had changed overmuch because, unlike Severus, Lily had always known exactly where to find her first best friend. If she wanted to send him a letter, she would have.

Trelawney had descended from her tower to join them for dinner. She was no more likely to do so during the holidays than she was during term, and when she did, she was sure to do her best to terrify someone at the table with a vague and terrible prediction. Severus stood in the Great Hall entrance, watching her take her seat, and then abruptly rerouted toward the dungeons. He would take dinner in his rooms. Before he could get very far, Minerva McGonagall’s voice stopped him.

“Avoiding our resident ‘seer’, as well, Professor Snape?”

He shot her a look over his shoulder. She was carrying what looked suspiciously like a shrunken picnic basket. She jerked her chin in a “follow me” gesture as she turned and began walking away.

Severus knew what this was. He considered for a long moment, his strong tendency to protect himself from social interaction warring with the part of him that was curious – and, yes, flattered – and then he followed Minerva through the corridors, out a side exit and down a short, mossy stone staircase where the Great Lake lapped against the castle walls. There, where a naturally formed slab of rock jutted out into the water, Pomona Sprout was clumsily transfiguring rocks into a table and chairs.

She lowered her wand in relief at the sight of Minerva.

“Oh, thank goodness. You do it,” she suggested, smiling brightly at Severus. “Professor Snape! You’re joining us! How lovely!”

She seemed to mean it, Severus thought as he responded with a wary nod.

“What about Filius?” a third voice popped up, and when Severus turned he found that Poppy Pomfrey was also making her way toward the water’s edge, cradling a very large bottle of wine.

“He’s certain to take pity on poor Sybil, and have dinner with her in the Great Hall,” Minerva said grimly.

“Perhaps we all should…” Pomona began tentatively, and she earned three sharp looks and, from Minerva and Poppy, a perfect chorus of “No.”

Relieved, Severus accepted the chair Minerva produced for him, and watched in some trepidation as she unshrunk the basket and spread out a simple meal of bread and cheese. It was surprisingly simple fare. Seeing his raised brow, Minerva chuckled.

“The key ingredient, this evening, is of course the alcohol.” She drew four wine glasses from her basket with a slight flourish, and winked at him.

Absorbing the surreal scene before him, made all the more incredible by _Minerva McGonagall’s wink_ , Severus watched Pomfrey uncork her wind bottle with a wandless spell, and pour out with a heavy hand.

Severus had never been invited to the lakeside dinners before, though he knew they were taking place. He didn’t want to enjoy being included this much, but he felt his heart thudding as though he was ten years old and included at the most exclusive cafeteria table. And, of course, he hated himself through every minute of it.

Well, until they had made it through several glasses each, whereupon Severus’s reserve had receded to a point where he reached out and snatched the bottle from the center of the table and tilted it suspiciously to and fro in front of his face.

“It’s still more than half full,” he said thoughtfully. “Replenishing charm, or…?”

“Well spotted,” said Pomfrey. “Very common in medicine containers. But it isn’t bottomless, so be sure you share.”

Severus rolled his eyes, then diplomatically topped off everyone else’s glass before his own.

“Still seeing that gentleman of yours, Pomona?” Pomfrey wanted to know. Startled, Severus looked over at Sprout, whose face had gone rather rosy. She brushed her curls out of her face.

“We’re on a bit of a hiatus,” she said lightly. “He wanted to travel over the holidays, but I have a batch of mandrakes that were rather late maturing I have to monitor.”

Pomfrey stared. “You do realize any second year could harvest mandrakes, Pomona. Let alone any one of your friends on the staff.”

Sprout shrugged.

“It’s better to be direct, if you want to end things,” Minerva declared. Her voice, Severus thought, seemed to become both higher and sharper the more she drank. Which was quite a lot, so far, with occasional disparaging comments about why anyone would choose to drink wine over whiskey.

“Minerva would know,” Pomfrey said, with a sly grin. “Our resident heartbreaker.”

Minerva was nonplussed. “Relationships are rather transactional for me. I am not a romantic person, nor do I desire or require constant companionship.”

“And they say Gryffindors mate for life!” Pomona hooted.

“No, no, that’s Slytherins,” Pomfrey said, and at once they all looked at Severus, who had been trying to melt into the background during this particular bit of conversation.

“Never heard it said,” he managed, rather coolly, considering.

“It’s Purebloods, regardless of their house,” supplied Minerva, rescuing him – deliberately, it would seem, considering she _winked. Again_. Severus was going to develop indigestion. He reached for a slice of bread and tore a piece off, stuffing it in his mouth so no one could try to make him talk. “A Pureblood, I am not,” Minerva continued.

None of their assemblage was, Severus noted, and not for the first time.

“What about you, Severus?” Pomfrey asked, fixing him with a long, interested look that clearly communicated how little she minded embarrassing him. “You’re young! Surely you have your own trail of broken hearts.”

Severus snorted. “Hardly,” he said. Why was he encouraging them? He’d really had too much to drink.

“Professor Snape is very career minded,” Pomona remarked in a kindly way, as though she was describing an unfortunate but treatable medical condition.

“But it’s summer!” Pomfrey insisted. “Summer is the time for romance. Or whatever Minerva calls it.”

“Sex,” Minerva said, and the other two women burst into laughter while Severus felt his entire face become red and hot.

“I just remembered,” he said, standing abruptly, “that I am supposed to be helping Mr. Filch this evening. With the boats.” He had never been so happy to remember a prior commitment.

Still grinning and wheezing, Pomfrey rolled her eyes. Minerva arched a brow. Pomona gave him a pitying look.

They thought he was lying!

“I shall…see you tomorrow.”

“What is it that Mr. Filch needs?” Pomfrey asked innocently.

“Boats. The boats are, ah, in need of a scrape. We do it every June.”

“Do you?” Pomona asked, as though he had just revealed something fascinating. “What else does he do? I have never really understood Mr. Filch’s role.”

Minerva looked at Pomona in amusement. “You mean you had thought he had no purpose, aside from very ineffective nightly patrols that the prefects are meant to do, anyway?”

“The first years fear him, and fear can be useful,” said Pomfrey.

Severus felt a sudden need to defend Argus. “He completes a number of tasks that the house elves will not. And supervises the house elves, to a certain extent.” It did sound feeble when he said it out loud.

“Dumbledore likes him,” said Pomfrey, as though that explained everything.

“It’s good for the children to see a Squib in society,” Pomona said, then tentatively added, “though I’m not sure Mr. Filch’s particular job is…”

“Real?” Minerva asked.

Pomona blushed, clearly loathe to imply anything unkind. Severus glared at Minerva and started to leave, but to his surprise all three women leapt to their feet to follow him.

When he looked back, annoyed, Pomfrey said, “Surely the help of four people is preferable to just one?”

Severus sighed, and they trailed after him toward the boathouse, where they didn’t bother to conceal their unanimous surprise when they found Argus Filch bent over a boat with a wire brush, scowling up at Professor Snape as soon as he heard them coming.

“A bit late, aren’t you?” He took in the three women and his sour expression didn’t falter. “Come to watch, did they?”

Severus shed his robes and rolled up his sleeves. “We’re all here to help, Argus,” he said, and couldn’t contain a tiny smile when he turned to face his colleagues. “Isn’t that right?”

“Can’t use magic,” Argus said. “Hard on the wood.”

Maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t. Severus had never investigated the claim. He took another brush from the pail and tossed it to Minerva. When she blinked at him, startled, Severus couldn’t help it – he winked.

A slow, pleased smile spread over Minerva’s face, and then she cleared her throat, drawing her own sleeves up toward her elbows. “Certainly. We’re here to help. A little manual labor can be quite refreshing, I’ve found.”

Pomfrey was the last one to pick up a brush. By the time she did, everyone but Severus had begun scrubbing the overturned boat with varying levels of enthusiasm. She met Severus’s eye and smirked.

“You’re all right, Sev,” she declared.

“Summers are so strange,” said Pomona.

“Indeed,” sighed Severus, and joined them.


	2. 1991

## 1991

 

“Excellent news,” Filius exclaimed, bursting into Severus’s potions room so suddenly Severus nearly dropped the delicate vial he was suspending over the active cauldron between his thumb and forefinger.

Severus sighed. “What?” He carefully added a drop of the vial’s contents, using magic to temper the natural flow of the liquid from the lip of the glass. The sludgy gray concoction in the cauldron immediately turned transparent and began to boil. Satisfied, Severus drew back and carefully brushed his hair away from his face. The fumes did good things for his skin and bad things for his hair.

“Lily Potter is considering sending Harry Potter to Hogwarts,” Filius went on, oblivious to the fact he was interrupting. Annoyed, Severus wondered how _he_ would like it if _Severus_ burst into _Filius’s_ office when _Filius_ was casting a particularly complex spell.

“How perfectly terrible,” Severus deadpanned.

Filius only looked ruffled for a moment before his expression became fond and wry. He ambled forward to pat Severus’s sleeve.

“There’s nothing wrong with admitting to a little excitement, Severus,” he said solemnly. “We all know that Lily Potter is the one who got away. And now you’ll be teaching her child, perhaps even mentoring him…it’s all very romantic.”

“‘The one who got away’?” Severus echoed in acidic tones. “You mean ‘the one who hates me and married someone else’?” He thought through the rest of what Filius had said and shuddered at the thought of himself at the front of a classroom being glared at by a defiant brat who was a perfect replica of James Potter at eleven. “Minerva will be able to mentor him. Gryffindors beget Gryffindors; everyone knows this.”

Filius looked thoughtful. “Well, I will confess that _Slytherin_ is an unlikely outcome for any Potter, especially one with Muggle lineage.” He grinned, eyes twinkling under his heavy eyebrows. “I’m hoping for him to be an Eagle, of course.”

“Of course,” Severus said, amused by his imagination’s rendering of Harry Potter – again, looking exactly like James Potter the fall Severus had the misfortune to first meet him – scowling down at a stack of books in the Ravenclaw common room. “I’m sure James Potter produced quite the young scholar.”

Filius settled on a stool and watched Severus peer determinedly into his cauldron, as though carefully monitoring it at this stage was necessary. Filius wouldn’t know the difference, anyway; for a skilled wizard, he was perfectly clueless about potions. “Now, Severus,” Filius said, undeterred. “Sad, under the circumstances, of course, but he’s more Lily’s son than James’s, isn’t he? You know what they say about nature and nurture.”

“Right,” Severus said shortly. He suddenly imagined a red-haired, green-eyed child with Lily’s sweet smile, and didn’t know what would be worse.

“They’re coming to the castle, and Albus has asked me to show them about,” Filius went on, clearly delighted. “I’ve exchanged the odd letter with Lily over the years, and we did have a consultation was a few years back on a spell she was researching, but it will be lovely to see her. I’ve taught a long time, and I don’t like to say so, but I do believe she’s my favorite student.”

Severus couldn’t help his smile, but he was sure he kept his face turned down into the cauldron so Filius couldn’t see it, even though the brew was giving off enough steam that his eyes were beginning to sting. “So no decision has been made, then?” He asked, striving for a bored tone, and succeeding nicely, he thought.

Of course, Filius’s smile was still broad and knowing. “I don’t think our cautious Lily would bring the boy here if she wasn’t nearly sure,” he said. “I’m very optimistic. Perhaps while she’s here, you’ll want to cross our path and say hello.”

Severus snorted. To his dismay, over the past year certain among the faculty had come to know rather a lot about Severus’s history with Lily, and the apparently permanent place she occupied in Severus’s regard. “Do you want me to scare her off?”

“Severus,” Filius started, and then for once Severus was served well by coincidence when Pomfrey appeared in the doorway.

“Put that cauldron under a stasis charm, Severus,” she barked. “Minerva is alone with her bottle of Scotch, and if any of the rest of us would like to have any, we will need to be quick.”

Severus straightened, exasperated. “This is an experimental variation of an anti-insanity counter-antidote, I can’t just put it under…”

Filius had cast a charm so quickly and effortlessly, Severus could only gape when his potion froze, in a manner of speaking, as though time had stopped. The small bubbles coursing through it as it boiled had even stilled, and a large one on the surface trembled but didn’t pop.

“Let’s go, Severus,” Filius chirped, hopping off the stool.

“If I’m not going to break new ground in my field in the summer, when am I supposed to do it?” Severus wanted to know, following them as though he had no choice.

“The summer isn’t for research, Severus,” Pomfrey said. “The summer is for recreation.”

Filius was nodding. Severus, long-suffering, sighed. If it had been anyone else’s turn to provide the alcohol at dinner at the lake, he would have hexed Pomfrey and Filius, unfortunate personal attachments be damned, and slammed the door behind them as soon as they were forced to retreat. He was definitely only going along because of the Scotch.

Septima Vector had beaten them to the meeting place, and seeing them approach, Minerva lazily waved her wand and a stone too near the water’s edge sprang to new life as an ornate wooden chair, teetered, then promptly tumbled into the lake and began to float way.

“Damn,” snapped Minerva, further evidence that there was merit in Pomfrey’s concerns about Minerva posing a danger to the evening’s supply of Scotch.

Vector eyed Severus with dislike, as she always did, because she had been teaching far longer than he had and wasn’t offered the Slytherin Head of House position when Slughorn left it. She had divulged her resentment the first time they had drank Minerva’s Scotch together, which was near the end of the previous summer, since Vector spent most of it on a lengthy hiatus charting spells in primitive island societies. Not that she’d _wanted_ to babysit scores of baby megalomaniacs round the clock, she’d said. But she’d wanted to be _asked_.

Severus sneered back at her, and transfigured his own chair. “Vector,” he said, nose up.

She lifted her chin and angled it away from him. “Snape.”

“Now, now, Slytherins,” Pomfrey drawled, looking between them with obvious delight. “Don’t distract yourself from a pleasant evening with your displays of dominance.”

They both scoffed, then glared at one another.

“Here,” Minerva ordered, thrusting a glass toward Severus and causing its contents to slosh dangerously. When he accepted it, she turned her sharp look on Vector. “Behave, or I won’t share with either of you.”

Pomona appeared with a picnic basket, and their party was complete. They hadn’t drank nearly enough before Filius delivered his news, sounding, somehow, even more excited than when he’d first relayed it to Severus in the brewing room.

Immediately, the three witches gave Severus sly looks. He scowled, blushing and hating them all. Fiercely.

Wisely, they refrained from commenting for the moment, though Severus knew that, rather than giving him a reprieve, they were likely waiting for a moment he would be unsuspecting in order to most effectively strike.

“I thought that the castle generated the letters based upon residency and magical ability both,” said Sprout, frowning. “Is the child in Britain, then?”

Minerva shook her head. “The Headmaster may recommend children by name to the castle,” she said. “As you note, Pomona, the castle’s spells only generate letters for magical British children who are just at schooling age. If a child comes from elsewhere, or is older for some reason – a transfer student, say – the castle must consider them individually.”

“How very odd,” Vector said after a moment, giving the castle a guarded look over her shoulder, as though it might be eavesdropping. Certainly it was, in its way, Snape thought. They were grown witches and wizards, all, but he knew the staff bore Hogwarts castle the kind of respect that contained an ingredient of fear. Magical forces that could not be completely understood, much less predicted, were worthy of such.

“I suppose it’s not strictly special treatment,” Pomfrey said, frowning as though she wasn’t quite convinced. “Harry Potter was born in Britain, after all.”

“And his parents were citizens,” Pomona said, nodding. “It wouldn’t be…right…for him to be educated somewhere else.” She didn’t say the obvious: Harry Potter, in some ways, _belonged_ to wizarding Britain. How could he not, when as an infant he had saved them all? Severus scowled into his glass. A Potter _and_ a celebrity. The child would be _insufferable_.

“All right there, Sev?” Pomfrey looked amused. “Nargle in your Scotch, maybe?”

Severus glared at her and drained the Scotch in answer, regretting it when the full force of the stuff in quantity made his mouth catch fire. He grimaced and looked away while it burned down his throat and coiled in his stomach like fire.

“It’s almost gone,” Pomfrey said sadly as she dutifully refilled Severus’s glass.

“Hardly!” Minerva crowed, reaching into her robes and withdrawing a second bottle. She set it on the table and gave everyone a triumphant look. Pomfrey and Vector looked pleased, Pomona looked uncertain, and Filius downright uneasy. But no one turned down the next glass, or the next. At some point, they passed around the bread and cheese, and the moon climbed high in a clear sky.

“There is no force more humanizing than deep, personal connection,” Sprout said solemnly, after they had vanished the table and chairs and were all reclining on the damp stone in various positions. Sprout was sprawled flat on her back, her soft arms thrown over her head while she stared at the sky.

“That sounds sexual,” said Pomfrey, leaning back on her hands with her feet in the water. Everyone made some sound of either amusement or, in most cases, embarrassed chastisement, while Pomfrey blushed but continued to appear stubbornly amused. They were, Severus reflected not for the first time, a sadly monastic order, the Hogwarts faculty. It was always especially evident when Pomfrey tried to be ribald – always awkwardly – and a roomful of middle-aged witches and wizards blushed and protested.

“The crucible of personal anguish forges strength of character,” tried Flitwick.

“Sometimes you just need to get laid,” called Minerva baldly, her crossed legs stretched out in front of her and crossed at the ankle, robes askew so that her stockings showed. After a shocked moment, the assemblage burst into laughter – even Severus choked on a laugh. It felt like water forced from a rusty pipe, and for some reason made him experience a moment of nearly unbearable sadness.

“You know,” he said, almost disembodied by the force of so many strong and rarely-felt emotions, “I often think that the lot of you are possessed in the summer months by the median personality of your house.”

“Are you calling us immature, Severus?” Pomona asked, smiling, and came to lean against the back of Minerva’s chair. She reached down and patted the Transfigurations professor on her neatly coiffed head.

“Yes,” he said flatly, and they all laughed again. Severus’s mouth twitched in a smile and he allowed it to linger there.

“I’m a Scot, and therefore I must drink and make merry where I may,” Minerva sighed, her attitude confessional and resigned. “But I have certainly learned how to channel an aunt I had that I found rather unapproachable. It is quite natural for me now. I blame Filius, of course.” She winked owlishly at Filius, who was blushing.

“It is my honor to understand the Gryffindor temperament,” he said cryptically, nodding. Then he caught Severus’s confused expression and explained, sort of: “I told Minerva that if she came across as too sympathetic, she’d be confidante and personal counselor to the majority of her House, and left with no opportunity to draw lesson plans and mark scrolls, let alone have any sort of personal life.”

Severus snorted in amusement. Minerva was nodding sadly.

“I still reveal too much from time to time,” she said, then shot Severus a sudden, wicked grin. “Not all of us can be as constantly terrifying as you, Severus.”

Surprised, Severus gave this new information some thought. He was certainly naturally barbed with all people, perhaps children especially, but perhaps he had subconsciously elevated that aspect of his personality as a defense mechanism. He remembered the first few times he had faced a student that was clearly upset and fearful of him, and how it had caused an unhappy pang somewhere in his heart. He hadn’t felt that way for a long time.

“Teaching children is soulless work,” he concluded darkly, and Minerva blinked at him.

“I adore it,” she said, voice level with honesty, and the rest of the staff began nodding thoughtfully.

“We all do,” Pomona confirmed.

Severus balked, but then he thought about his quiet study in the evenings. His private brewing room and ready availability of all but the rarest ingredients. He thought of long collaborations there with Pomona, her hair fizzing in the steam as they bent reverently over a cauldron of a particularly complex and successful healing potion. He thought of gathering herbs with Pomona on cool evenings, in comfortable silence when there was nothing to say. And, blast them, he thought of the Slytherin students and their worrying conniving and their hard-won loyalty. He thought of the handful of gifted potions students he’d taught over the years, and the way seeing the light of understanding and fascination spark in their eyes for the first time, he relived that same moment in his life so many years ago.

“I think I may be ill,” Severus said, too quietly for anyone but Filius to hear. The little man elbowed him sharply.

“Misery is very lazy, you know,” Filius informed him.

“I actually find it requires a great deal of effort,” said Pomona.

“That may be the crucial difference between us,” said Filius sadly, “that rendered me ineligible for Hufflepuff.”

*************

On the day Lily brought her son to visit Hogwarts, Severus hid in the dungeons with unapologetic cowardice.

He…had written her a letter. A terrible, revealing one that he couldn’t even blame on drunkenness. She had not responded.

Severus had considered placing his memories of Lily in a penseive. There were two schools of thought regarding penseives – one, that they were the best method of storing precious memories, safe from corruption. Another, that they could corrupt the purity of a memory, and change the way it was recalled in the mind.

Severus spent a lot of time with his own memories in his own mind, tormenting himself with his mistakes as well as instances of happiness. He often thought that he would be better off if Dumbledore had never offered him a position at Hogwarts. Maybe, forced to live in the wider world, he might have been able to leave his childhood behind, too. Instead, he felt a prisoner to those old experiences, those old feelings, and his dreams offered no relief.

Sitting stiffly at his desk, thinking about penseives, Severus couldn’t avoid the sensation of his heart, hammering. There was no Muggle science or magical principal to back it up, but he thought he must be reacting to Lily’s proximity. That maybe, even now, she was in the corridor outside his door. Why else would he be feeling this painful compulsion to throw open the door?

After a long moment, Severus bolted from his desk, strode across the room and did just that. The heavy wooden door ricocheted off the stone wall so hard it nearly slammed closed again, but Severus caught it automatically. The corridor was empty, but still he felt – he felt this _draw_. He followed it.

For some reason, the oft-visited memory of the last time he had seen Lily began to replay in his head. He had to stop, lean against the wall, and breathe heavily through complicated occlumency to make it stop.

That _draw_ , faced with an interruption, eased somewhat. Resistance was bearable, and Severus very nearly turned and walked with haste back to his chambers, but then he heard her voice.

Damnable castle. They were quite far away, and the sound of them talking, were sound behaving naturally, would not have reached Severus. He knew because Filius was describing a painting with which Severus, too, was familiar, and it hung on the wall opposite the History of Magic classroom.

“…as you can see, the subject is absent, but it is the characters in the background that have always made this portrait particularly special. Can you tell me why?”

He was asking the boy, obviously. But Lily laughed.

A soft, rough sound. Severus closed his eyes.

He could imagine the child leaning close to study the painting. After a pause, the boy said, in a quiet and thoughtful voice that sounded at once very like and in no way similar to a young James Potter, “They’re not sheep – they’re people! Wearing sheeps’ skins!”

“Very good, Harry!” Filius said. “It can be easy to miss, since they’re quite far in the distance, but true sheep have _four_ legs and these ‘sheep’ show only two. They’re meant to symbolize the wizards who snuck into a dragon’s lair during the third Goblin war. Do you recall the lesson, Lily?”

Severus held his breath.

“Vaguely,” Lily said. She sounded the same. How could she sound exactly the same? “I confess that I was prone to a bit of daydreaming in History of Magic.”

Filius laughed, his affection obvious. “If that was the only sort of dreaming you got up to in History of Magic,” he said, voice lowered conspiratorially, “then you were a rare student, Miss Evans. Shall we move on? I know young Harry is probably eager to see the grounds…”

Severus couldn’t hear anything after that. He stayed at that place in the corridor for a long time. Several minutes, at least, of stillness, with his palm growing clammy on the cold stone where he leaned. Then he inhaled, decisive, and walked toward the stairs that led up to the main floor.

As a child – then a teenager, then a young man – Severus had several times planned to go to Lily. More than once, he had a speech planned; other times, he trusted the right words to come to him spontaneously. But always, when faced with the sight of her, he had failed to follow through. Today was the same. He stood in a doorway, in shadow, while beyond the threshold of sunlight Lily and her son sat together, the child turned from Severus. He absorbed, only, that the boy was small and dark-haired, before he looked directly at Lily and could not look away.

She was the same. How was she the same? The sun lit her hair into red-gold flame. She sat with an easy grace in her posture, her face relaxed, a small, secretive smile on the left side of her mouth. And when she looked up, as though sensing Severus’s gaze on her, her eyes were for an instant a painfully warm green, before they narrowed and darkened, hard and sharp as emeralds.

****************

“So you just ran away?” Minerva demanded, later, from where she sat across from him in her rooms. For once, there appeared to be no Scotch on hand. Severus didn’t know whether he was disappointed or relieved.

“It…” Severus started, then shrugged. “It didn’t seem like the right time.”

Minerva snorted. “Albus has us all working on her checklist of safety precautions,” she sniffed, even though Severus knew she was secretly pleased that they were addressing some of the traditions which most recklessly put the lives of school children at occasional risk. “She is clearly one of those young parents who will be owling about every detention or missed assignment. If the child attends school here, you will have to face her sooner or later.”

“I know this,” Severus said shortly, eyes stormy. Minerva narrowed her eyes.

“No need to be rude to _me_ , Severus. You’re the one who came knocking on _my_ door. If you didn’t want an honest opinion, you should have gone to Pomona, for coddling. Shall I firecall her?”

“ _No_ ,” Severus mumbled, hunching his shoulders, determined to sulk. Minerva continued to study him with an unnerving intensity, as though she was plotting him out for a later transfiguration.

“You’re not afraid of the boy, are you, Severus?” her tone was thoughtful. Severus looked up, shocked and horrified.

“ _Afraid_? Of an _eleven year old brat_?”

“I don’t mean ‘afraid’ in the sense you think he could best you in a duel,” Minerva said, amused. “But in the sense that you have unpleasant associations in regard to him. Or rather, his father and his uncles.” They had never discussed this topic directly, not since Severus was a student himself, but of course Minerva was familiar with some of the torment imposed upon Severus by certain Gryffindors, at least when they were actually caught and she was involved in their discipline. Which…wasn’t the case, in most instances, but Severus certainly wasn’t going to draw her a more complete portrait. He reddened and looked away.

“No.”

Minerva sighed. “I was hoping to finish some reading this evening, but perhaps we need the Scotch, after all.”

Severus shook his head, reluctantly amused. “I don’t think these are circumstances that should drive anyone to drink,” he said.

“Not at all,” Minerva agreed. She paused, then said lightly, almost cautiously, “In fact, from a certain perspective, one could say these circumstances are fortuitous. That there may be glad consequences, if one is willing to be the slightest bit...brave.”

Severus snorted.

“What is it you said about summers, Severus? That they make me more Gryffindor? And you, presumably, more Slytherin? Find the advantage, then. Forget bravery – what about seizing a viable opportunity?”

“How very Slytherin of you to say so,” Severus said dryly.

“There’s a little Slytherin in us all, I’ve found,” said Minerva. “Perhaps especially during the summer.”


	3. 1992

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some references to another story, here, so if you haven't read it (and don't want to) I'll fill in a few blanks for you from In Loco Parentis:
> 
> Quirnius Quirrell, true to canon, taught DADA in Harry's first year while possessed by Voldemort. He did not die, but he was detained in Hogwarts at the conclusion of In Loco Parentis in Spring 1992. The rest of that plot is picked up in Only Two.

When the aurors came to collect Quirnius Quirrell, Severus watched a cold rage descend over Lily. Albus had let them keep him nearly a month, claiming he had consented to medical treatment by Hogwarts staff which applied while he was unconscious. But within a few days of him waking up, and a long argument that consisted of Lily shouting and then snarling and Albus saying almost nothing in response, an owl was sent to the Ministry.

After their pseudo-prisoner was escorted away, magically cuffed and glaring blearily at them when he was turned about in the floo, Albus turned a look of quiet concern on Lily.

“We cannot hold to our ideals only when convenient,” he said softly. Lily’s eyes seemed to spark with a frightening energy. She stared at Albus and said nothing. Severus took her arm, very gently, and led her away. Somehow they wound up in his sitting room, and Severus managed to pour her a cup of tea without being swallowed by the unreality of having Lily there. It was the summer, he thought. It was a sudden, hot day, classes only over with for a few weeks.

Every time they had briefly met since Harry began at Hogwarts, they talked about the boy in a stilted, strange way. Severus did not want to talk about Harry, who while no longer the source of any particular ire on Severus’s part, Severus still didn’t like. He didn’t like children, really. He didn’t like most people, really. It wasn’t exactly personal, with the boy. Not anymore.

So when Lily opened her mouth, Severus braced himself for talk of the child. But instead she said, “What made you want to help him?”

She might have meant any number of people. She might have meant Albus Dumbledore. But Severus knew with certainty who she meant, partially because Lily so rarely asked easy questions. Partially because of the way she said “him.”

Severus thought about his answer for a long time, cradling his tea cup while it went cold. He remembered being brought before the dark lord for the first time, and his superhuman beauty. The way his stare was at once dark and warm, as though he saw every piece of Severus’s soul, and found it satisfying. “I wanted to be significant,” he said. “And I believed in him. I was young and I didn’t really understand the meaning of war.” He paused, then said in a slightly higher voice, “I was angry, and vindictive. But I didn’t…I didn’t understand.”

Lily had begun to look at him at some point. Her face was still, frighteningly expressionless. But after a moment or two of silence she nodded, as though she had heard nothing that surprised her.

“You must know that I’m deeply sorry,” he said. Her mouth twisted in a sort of grimace.

“For what? For _James_? I don’t know if you’re capable of that.”

“I don’t credit myself with enough of a contribution to the war to blame myself for every death, no,” Severus said shortly. “But I could never…you have to know, I could never be happy about anything that caused you unhappiness.”

Lily blinked, searching his face. “I want to believe you. But your excuse is that you were, what, young and stupid? But you’ve never been stupid. And I’m not sure you’ve ever been truly young.”

“I’ve been ignorant,” he corrected gently. “I am rather ignorant now.” He looked around the room, sinking his teeth into his lip. “I haven’t seen much of the world, or made any effort to. I’ve protected myself against any threat of enlightenment.”

Lily set down her teacup and crossed her arms, still watching him. “I wanted an excuse to be unkind to you,” she said, as though she was daring him to recoil, or look away. He didn’t. “Being close to you made so many things more difficult for me.”

Severus flinched, but didn’t lower his eyes. He swallowed the lump in his throat. “I am…difficult,” he conceded. He thought of variations of those words, spoken in his mother’s voice – in his _father’s_ – and slammed a door closed abruptly on the memories.

“I’m sorry too,” Lily said. “I’ve been young and stupid.” She leaned forward and, to Severus’s stunned delight, she picked up his hand and held it. “You…you made me think that it was normal, to be loved without expectation,” she said softly, and then she was the one to look away. Her fingers, smooth and white, fine and strong, held his more tightly. “I didn’t know how rare that was, or how lucky it made me.”

Severus did not know what to say. He had always known, since they were children, that Lily was something precious and unnaturally perfect, and in return for her friendship he had tried to give her all of himself, aware it wasn’t enough. He didn’t know what to say to her now that wouldn’t sound pathetic or otherwise out of tune with the moment. So he held her hand and watched her watching him. She had a thoughtful look on her face, and he had the sense that she had decided something.

“Sev,” she said quietly. The nickname, which others had used and which he’d always hated, sounded painfully familiar and welcome on Lily’s tongue.

Oh, Gods, Lily’s tongue. She was standing in front of him, somehow moving while he reeled from the effect of that version of his name in that voice, like something from every daydream of his teenage self, washing over him and leaving him helpless with want. She lifted the hand she held to her cheek and kissed it, pressing the tip of her tongue very briefly into his palm, her eyes warm in invitation.

Severus groaned and wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her toward him. She offered no resistance, and then he was holding her, pliant and warm, against his chest. Still sitting, his mouth was at a convenient height – he only had to tip his head back to lay his cheek against her left breast and release a hot breath against her right. She untangled their fingers so she could put both hands in his hair.

It was summer, and she wasn’t wearing much beneath her robes. The realization stunned Severus, when, reaching beneath her to lift her onto his lap, the legs that came over his thighs and straddled him were bare. He wrestled with the folds of material until his hands were beneath, settling near her knees and then running up her thighs to her hips. He was already hard, and she scooted forward and _against_ and Severus sucked in a breath, cursing every article of clothing that still remained between them. Out loud, apparently, because he heard her chuckle, low, then she put her mouth below his ear and nipped him.

“There’s a spell for that,” she whispered directly into his ear, in a way that made his brain short circuit.

“If I touch my wand right now, I might unintentionally disfigure one or both of us,” Severus managed, his hands moving again, wonderingly but slowly, as though if he moved to fast she might disappear. He still worried about that, in fact; that she would snap out of whatever had come over her and vanish.

Lily put her knuckles under his chin and forced it up so that their eyes met. She was gazing down at him, beautifully disheveled and flushed. She lowered her face slowly and kissed Severus with her eyes open. Seen from an inch away, Severus found that there was a gold ring in the center of all that green iris, and that when he parted her lips with his tongue, her pupil dilated in the moment before her eyes fluttered closed. The kiss made him bold; when she sucked his tongue deeper into her mouth Severus made a muted sound and one hand sought her breast, reveling in the softness, the peak of a nipple he couldn’t help giving a gentle pinch. She murmured against his mouth, pleased, so he did it again, and when she ground against his hard cock so that he could feel the hot dampness of her entrance they both moaned.

Lily pulled back, panting. “I need you now, Sev,” she said, and Severus worried for a split second that the words might make him come in his trousers like a teenager. But he managed to control himself, easing Lily off his lap, standing unsteadily and struggling out of his robes while she did the same. Staggered by the sight of her in her nothing but a simple black bra and panties, he went abruptly still and it fell to Lily, laughing softly, to close the distance between them again, her hands impatient at his belt.

She divested him of his trousers in short order, shoved his pants to his knees and grasped the length of him with both hands with a guturral sound of approval that made Severus experience an absurd moment of masculine pride. Then, somehow, despite being half his height and weight, she maneuvered him forcibly back into a sitting position in the chair, and released him so that she could step out of her underwear.

He could only hope that there would be more time, later, to memorize her, because Severus had only a moment to appreciate the sight of _Lily_ , _all but naked_ , putting her hands on his shoulders to lever herself over him, before she was _close_ , _there_ , and _sinking_ down on him with a tight heat that made him briefly see stars.

Lily rode him at a rapid pace, while he tried to put his hands and his tongue wherever they would reach, biting and licking at her breasts and her throat, sinking his nails into the globes of her arse, feeling the sheen of sweat that broke out on her thighs as she rose up, lowered herself and ground her clit against his pubic bone in a fast and tireless rhythm. Severus lasted longer than he thought possible, but only a moment after her; as soon as he felt her convulse, heard her cry out as she bent her head to his shoulder, his own release came in three dizzying waves.

After that, in the way that summers did, the warm days stretched and passed and Severus wrote letters to Lily. She wrote back. She came through the floo without warning some evenings, and they sat together, discussing books and potions journals, or sometimes tumbled directly into Severus’s bed. Severus rarely went to dinner in the Great Hall, afraid he might miss her if she chose that night to stop in. He tried to ignore the knowing looks he began to receive from other staff.

“Severus,” Pomfrey remarked one evening, as he begged off dinner at the lakeshore in order to go read by his floo, lovesick and unrepentant. “Regular sex is supposed to make you less miserable, not more so.”

“I’m…I’m not…” Severus protested, cheeks flaming. He had not spoken a word of Lily’s visits to a soul, exercising the total discretion that was warranted by such blatant wish fulfillment.

Pomfrey waved him into silence with a knowing look, following the others, and Severus retreated to the dungeons, face still hot. Lily did not come that night, which left him with plenty of time to reflect on Pomfrey’s observations. _Was_ he _more_ miserable? He was not happy; he was too preoccupied by anticipating when it would end, which glimpse of Lily, laying back against his pillows, cheeks pink and satisfied, would be his last.

The days leading up to Quirrell’s trial were particularly taxing for Severus. Something about being near Lily in public sent him into a downward spiral of anxiety. It didn’t help that he generally avoided going out in public altogether, and had a host of not-too-distant and remarkably unpleasant memories of an arrest and interrogation that culminated with his own trial before the Wizengamot.

It was during this period that Filius intercepted Severus from his pacing through the storage corridors and said, “Come with me.”

Inexplicably, Severus followed. At first, he kind of trailed after Filius, which made no sense because the difference in their heights meant that Severus’s stride was several times longer, but he began walking more determinedly when he realized which direction they were going. As a result, he was directly behind Filius when they arrived in front of the glossy blue doors of the Ravenclaw Library.

Filius looked up into what Severus knew was a very surprised look on his face, and smiled. “I don’t know what else to do to make you feel better,” he said. “But this may be your only visit, and you cannot share the secret.”

“I won’t,” Severus said automatically, but he was a little stunned to be trusted with a secret like this one at all.

Filius smiled and said kindly, “You misunderstand me, Severus. You will be _unable_ to share the secret. It is part of the magic.” He opened the doors and looked over his shoulder in invitation, then stepped through. Severus followed, feeling very much as though he was walking into a warm cloud, but then the sensation eased and the golden light cleared, and he and Filius were standing inside the Hogwarts library.

Of the many things Severus had thought of, in years of fervent speculation, this possibility hadn’t even made the list. His eyes narrowed. A shortcut to the ordinary library? No, it wouldn’t explain the secrecy; Ravenclaws wouldn’t delight in deceit for its own sake. His gaze roamed the room. It wasn’t merely a similar library – it was the Hogwarts library, as Severus knew it to appear, as familiar to him as his own chambers. But, it was empty. Madam Pince was missing from her position behind the desk. The windows, also, were blank and reflective, the way that they were at night, and Severus knew that it was mid-morning.

“A parallel plane,” Severus murmured, and Filius beamed at him, as he might a particularly brilliant student at deducing a difficult problem.

“Precisely,” he chirped. “And fixed in time, as well. Though if you stay more than five hours, you’ll find yourself a bit queasy. Still, a tremendous academic advantage for Ravenclaws, I’m afraid. The other students must be offered a time turner, and the Ministry has become rather judicious with their use. But, there’s more. If you would…” Filius gestured with barely contained excitement, a flurry of hand motions in the general direction of the Restricted Section. Severus obligingly walked that way, scanning the shelves as he walked between the towering book cases, and found an unfamiliar pedestal with an unfamiliar, massive book lying unopened on its surface. An unnatural light illuminated the cover as Severus drew closer, and he read the title aloud.

“ _Essential Knowledge for the Aspiring Immortal,_ ” Severus murmured, then looked over his shoulder at Filius with an arched brow. When Filius only continued to grin insensibly, Severus reached out to lift the cover, and found it completely unyielding, as though the entire tome was formed from stone, the cover tightly adhered to the pages and the entirety tightly adhered to the pedestal.

“It will only open for a Ravenclaw,” Filius explained, advancing to lay a reverent hand on the book. Severus stepped aside to give Filius enough space to step onto the unobtrusive stair at the front of the pedestal, which adjusted after Filius stood atop it so that he was at the ideal height to study the book. Filius opened it, and the pages gleamed with text handwritten in a fine, neat script.

“This was written by Rowena Ravenclaw herself,” Filius murmured, eyes gleaming. “It is said that if you can truly learn what she teaches here, the secrets of life and death will be known to you. She spent the last two hundred years of her life in this library, studying nearly all its contents, and composing this book. But it builds on itself, and you must learn a concept before the words describing the next will reveal themselves to you.” Filius sighed wistfully and closed the book again, turning to Severus with a half smile. “Of course, too many wished to do as Lady Ravenclaw did, and spend an unnatural number of years in the stasis of this room. Some for the purpose of acquiring knowledge, and others out of fear of death. Realizing this, just before meeting her own death, Lady Ravenclaw spelled the entrance to link all who pass to the other side, so that they cannot stay more than several hours in a day without being drawn back where they belong.”

Severus, not often speechless, found himself staring at the book with unabashed envy. “And only a Ravenclaw may study her book,” he murmured, and Filius must have caught on to the covetousness Severus felt so deeply, bleeding into his voice. The little man went still and solemn, which was quite unlike him, and descended from the stair in one surprisingly agile leap. He patted Severus’s elbow.

“Only those who would seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge can seek the title of the Heir of Ravenclaw,” he explained. “When I say ‘a Ravenclaw,’ that is what I mean. Some students who the hat sends me cannot even perceive the book, let alone touch it. They are not true ‘Ravenclaws’ to me, just as I’m sure there are those in your house who you cannot fathom having sorted to Slytherin.”

“Heir of Ravenclaw?”

Filius nodded. “Rowena Ravenclaw prized intellect over blood; she designed this experience to one day identify and inform the one most similar to her in mind, regardless of lineage. Rather hurtful to her daughter, the last of her line.”

“But then…the story of the Heir of Slytherin, and the Chamber of Secrets…”

“Not a story. Some histories refer to a Chamber of Knowledge, and by it they must mean this library. I have learned much of Ravenclaw’s work, but I am not her heir. I will die long before I complete it.” Filius spoke without rancor, and Severus studied him with supreme respect. He couldn’t fathom having the beginning of so many answers, and no hope to learn them. He supposed there was a reason the magic wouldn’t allow him to open the book.

They stayed until a persistent, highly unpleasant tugging sensation began in Severus’s chest, and then they left the library, passing through what Severus now knew to be an inter-plenary portal disguised as a doorway. He shuddered at the thought, and marveled that such a tremendous journey could take place in the space of a few steps, and feel like nothing but warm, moist air. As soon as they were beyond the doors, Severus felt the memory of the hours in the library leaving him, as though his mind was a sieve.

“If you can’t remember it, what is the point…?” He began, and promptly forgot what he had been talking about, so that Filius’s reply, when it came, made no sense at all.

“You remember only what it would benefit you to know.”

Severus couldn’t remember what he had seen beyond the doors at all, but he was left with an odd sense of peace. It was, for reasons he couldn’t quite identify, the same sense he had when he studied the Muggles’ maps of the galaxies, and their explanations for the birth and death of stars and the slow formation of planets. The way they described organisms crawling from hot new oceans to colonize the land. It was the sense of perspective, he supposed; the somehow reassuring thought that one mere human’s acts and omissions mattered not at all to the greater scheme, that vast mystery.

By the time the summer ended, though he wouldn’t stop to wonder why, Severus’s curiosity about the Ravenclaw library was sated, and would never bother him again.

In the last week of August, Severus lay in bed, on his side, facing Lily. She had a habit of studying him, which left him feeling anxious and flattered. He tried to appear nonplussed, fighting the urge to cover at least the lower half of his nakedness with the sheet.

“Harry,” she said, then smiled. “I know you don’t like to talk about him.”

Severus gave that statement a moment’s thought. “He is your son,” he said, but it didn’t sound like a response. Lily waited, and Severus tried again. “He’s not bad, as children go,” he said. “He’s a Slytherin, after all.”

Lily rolled her eyes. “Are you worried that it will be difficult now, being his teacher, when we…”

As always, any direct reference to their relationship was avoided. There were no definitions or future commitments involved. It deepened Severus’s sense that at the end of the summer, Lily would disappear, the way warmth and light and play always did at the advent of fall.

“Nothing has changed for me,” Severus heard himself say, before he had decided to speak. This happened with Lily, too. He did not intentionally let his guard down, but he found her inside his perimeter, outside the range of his defenses, anyway. Maybe it came with shedding his clothes, he thought absently. Then, seeing that her eyes were wide and her brows were raised, Severus thought about what he had just admitted, and blushed. He looked down at the sheet between them, where a lock of her hair had spread into a red fan over the white fabric.

“I couldn’t feel more for you than I already did,” he said honestly. “It won’t be any harder than it was before, to be your son’s teacher.” He frowned and looked back up at her as a thought occurred to him. “Unless he succeeds in his apparent goal of destabilizing the entire hierarchy of Slytherin house. I do not have time to sort through the fallout of a teenager’s revolution.”

Lily grinned at that last, then became sober again. She reached out and touched his cheek. “Sev,” she said softly. He closed his eyes, uncomfortably vulnerable, and felt the mattress shift as she leaned closer just before he felt her warm body slide into place against his. She nestled her forehead under his chin and wrapped her arm around his waist, tangling one leg between his.

Severus joined the staff for the last lakeside dinner, which was rather quiet and unusually cool. Minerva duplicated a heavy shawl and passed them out, and Severus was cold enough to accept it, wrapping the tartain-patterned wool around his shoulders and shuddering in relief.

“Summer’s gone already,” Pomona observed sadly. “All my fainting daisies are unconscious, and they usually last well into fall.”

“Quite the cold snap,” Minerva agreed, approvingly. “Means we’ll have a nice heavy snow before the next full moon.”

Pomona made another injured sound, and Pomfrey patted her sympathetically on the shoulder. Minerva was the only true Scot among them, no matter how many winters they spent at Hogwarts castle.

“Where is Filius this time? Trelawney told me she is going to spend the fortnight in meditation in her tower,” Pomfrey said.

“Did she?” Minerva was visibly surprised. “What about when classes resume?”

“Apparently,” Vector said, “she often leaves a note on her door encouraging the students to spend their class time reflecting on the consequences of eternity or some similar exercise in introspection, as she’s otherwise occupied.”

“For pity’s sake,” Minerva muttered, but didn’t elaborate on her disapproval. She always showed renewed self-restraint in the days leading up to the students’ return. Severus was surprised to find himself disappointed.

“Then where is Filius?” Pomfrey persisted.

“He’s meant to be helping Gilderoy Lockhart settle in,” said Severus, watching the faces around him light up with varying degrees of interest.

“Of course _Filius_ has that pleasure, when it’s wasted on him,” Pomfrey said sourly, and Pomona sputtered and blushed. Minerva looked thoughtful.

“Wasted on all of us, it would seem, though I once had my suspicions about our Severus.” She winked solemnly at him, and Severus felt his mouth fall open while the other three witches cackled.

“I never knew I was the source of such wild speculation,” Severus muttered.

For once, they finished the bread and not the wine, and wandered back toward the castle before midnight, forced by the deepening cold and the tendency of warming charms to attract the rogue Grindylow, especially on such an overcast night. Minerva held back to walk with Severus, surprising him by taking his arm. After a few quiet seconds wherein they meandered halfway to the castle, Minerva squeezed his forearm gently.

“Miss Evans is quite an accomplished witch,” she said. “And a brave and loyal Gryffindor, I’m proud to say.”

Severus had no idea how she knew, but he was also, somehow, unsurprised. He swallowed and looked at her, one eyebrow raised. “And?”

“Is it a summer romance, or something more?”

Severus looked away, shrugging mutely. “By definition, it’s a summer romance, I presume.”

“There are summer romances, and romances that happen to begin in the summer,” Minerva corrected matter-of-factly, patting his arm again before letting go of it. “I suppose time will tell.”

Severus breathed in deeply through his nose, and the chill air in his throat and lungs made him shiver for more reasons than one. The summer was over, and he felt very cold. He wandered down to his chambers feeling heavy-footed with defeat, but when the door swung close behind him, Lily was there. She had been curled in a chair, dozing, and sat up, blinking, as he walked in.

Something took shape in Severus’s heart, as though this was not coincidence, but rather evidence: that the summer would end and, though free of its effects, Lily would still be here, with him. Lily stood, stretched, and ran to him like a girl, leaping into his arms with a laugh. Something took shape in Severus’s heart, free and unfamiliar. He tried not to study it too closely. It felt dangerously like hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked my clumsy attempt at writing smut. Clumsy enough I don't know if it qualifies as smut?

**Author's Note:**

> Like everyone else who ever wrote anything and posted it on the internet, I would so appreciate your feedback!


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